NEW YORK CITY, New York — The New York Times “illegally obtained” tax documents of GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump from 1995 just weeks after the newspaper’s executive editor pledged he would go to prison to get such documents, the Trump campaign says.
“The only news here is that the more than 20-year-old alleged tax document was illegally obtained, a further demonstration that the New York Times, like establishment media in general, is an extension of the Clinton Campaign, the Democratic Party and their global special interests,” the Trump campaign said in a statement about the publishing of the documents. “What is happening now with the FBI and DOJ on Hillary Clinton’s emails and illegal server, including her many lies and her lies to Congress are worse than what took place in the administration of Richard Nixon – and far more illegal.”
The news comes just a few weeks after in early September the New York Times’ executive editor Dean Baquet said he would go to jail to print Trump’s tax returns, even if he obtained them illegally.
“Dean Baquet, the top editor at the New York Times, said he’d publish a story on Donald Trump’s taxes even if it means risking jail time,” CNN Money’s Chris Isidore reported back on Sept. 12. “He made the remark during a Harvard University forum Sunday, when he was asked about the legal risks tied to publishing a leaked or hacked copy of Trump’s taxes.”
“I think every journalist on the planet wants Donald Trump’s tax returns,” Laura Poitras, an Academy Award-winning filmmaker who made a documentary about leaker Edward Snowden, told Baquet and Washington Post editor Bob Woodward at the event.
But, according to Isidore, Poitras told both Baquet and Woodward “that the lawyers for their newspapers would probably warn them that they’d face jail time for publishing such information.”
Baquet told her he would publish the tax documents even if he illegally obtained them because Trump is, in his words, “a presidential candidate whose whole campaign is built on his success as a business man, and his wealth.”
Woodward also said he would go to jail too over it.
“Some things you have to do. Dean is exactly right. This defines Donald Trump,” Woodward said.
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